Raising Chickens 101: Collecting, Cleaning, and Storing Chicken Eggs

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Raising chickens for eggs? Let’s talk about how to collect, clean, store, and hatch chicken eggs in this fifth installment of our Raising Chickens 101 series.

Once you’ve eaten farm eggs, it’s hard to go back to grocery store eggs. Fresh farm eggs, free-range or not, are delicious, with bright yolks and firm whites. Give your hens ground oyster shell or a similar calcium supplement, available at farm suppliers, for strong eggshells.

Collecting Eggs

You’ll collect eggs every morning; hens cackling loudly are a sign or clue that they’re laying. I usually had another look in the afternoon, as well.

Chickens like to eat eggs as much as we do. Most egg-eaters learn on broken eggs and then begin to break eggs themselves. Chickens are opportunists and will pick at whatever looks edible. If you clean up broken eggs immediately and throw out any “eggy” straw or shavings, you can prevent egg-eating. A chicken that learns this habit can’t be cured, and others may follow her lead. You don’t want the chickens eating your eggs—you want them yourself!

You can tell what color eggs a hen will lay by the color of her ear. Yes, her ear. Birds don’t have external ears like humans do, so look for a small circle or oval of skin on the side of the head, next to the ear hole. If it’s white, your hen will lay white eggs; if it’s red, she’ll lay brown ones. There’s no difference in flavor or nutrition, but white eggs show the dyes more brightly at Easter!

Cleaning and Storing Eggs

Eggshells have a “bloom,” a natural coating that protects the egg from bacteria. Avoid washing if you can; instead, a wipe with a dry, rough cloth.

If the eggs have a little manure on them, you can wipe with a damp cloth for small spots. A really dirty egg can be submerged and scrubbed with a vegetable brush. Always use warm water; cold water will make the egg shrink inside the shell and will draw in bacteria.

Let eggs air-dry thoroughly before putting them away. (I liked to sort them by color, darkest to lightest, but that’s just me!)

Put them in dated egg cartons, and store them in the fridge on a shelf, not the door, where they will get jostled with every opening/closing. For partial cartons, I marked each egg in pencil with the day it was collected. Fresh eggs are good for a month in the refrigerator.

A cooking tip: To make deviled eggs, use week-old or older eggs, not this morning’s. The shells of really fresh eggs stick rather than peel cleanly.

Hatching Eggs

If you want chicks, you’ll need a rooster. As a rule of thumb, 10 to 12 hens per rooster is a good ratio. While you could build an incubator and supervise the development of the eggs, it’s easiest to let the hens take care of hatching.

A hen that is getting ready to nest becomes “broody.” This means that she wants to hatch her eggs. She’ll sit “tight” on the nest and resist having her eggs collected, whereas a nonbroody hen will let you reach under her to collect eggs. A broody hen may even peck or screech at anyone coming near. There are ways to discourage broodiness, but why would you? The hen does the work of hatching and raising, and you get free chicks!

Farm chickens can live 4 to 7 years and lay eggs for most of that time. Every year they go “off-lay” (stop laying eggs) for several months. This happens over the winter, when there’s too little daylight to trigger egg-laying. They’ll begin again in the spring.

About This Blog

Interested in raising chickens? Here’s our Raising Chickens 101 series—a beginner’s guide in 6 chapters. We’ll talk about how to get started raising chickens, choosing a chicken breed, building a coop, raising chicks, chicken care, collecting and storing eggs, and more. The author, Elizabeth Creith, has fifteen years of experience keeping chickens, ducks, geese and turkeys on her farm in Northern Ontario. She currently dreams of a new flock of fancy chickens!

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collecting eggs of unknown age

there is a brooding feral chicken in my yard - she's been there at least a week, maybe longer. are her eggs still edible even after they've been developing, and up to how many of the 21 days gestation period? if i push her off and take the eggs, will she come back if i leave her a few?

Feral nesting situation

Well, I've partially answered my own questions: she let me take a couple of eggs before she scarpered off in a very agitated and truculent manner...there were 17 eggs! I took 10 and left 7. The fetuses were quite well developed - I'guess half way through the gestation period. Not at all appetizing, to me, but the two feral cats I feed polished them off, a little hesitantly. They enjoyed the fetuses well enough, but took their time over ingesting the yolk.
After half an hour, mama reappeared looking rather flustered and investigated the territory surrounding her nest. Seemingly satisfied, she reentered said nest and resumed brooding. Papa also appeared as part of the reentry process, surveying the scene with a protective, authoritarian air. Duly satisfied, he crowed once and strutted off back in the direction from whence he had come..........
I'm curious to see whether she lays more eggs, and whether the existing ones proceed to maturity given her half hour absence. Que sera sera.....

Thank you

forgetting to collect

I get busy and forget to collect my eggs sometimes. How many days can an egg lay in the pen & still be safe to eat. I usually find one or two a day since they've started up again this spring. However, I've forgotten for about 5 days or more and I found 11 eggs today. Are they good?

how long eggs last

You shouldn’t worry if it’s been a few days. When eggs are sitting at room temperature, they can last for weeks. The eggs, before being washed, have a natural coating that seems them more protected. Of course, you can test your eggs yourself. If they do not sink to the bottom of a bowl of water, they are not fresh.

tranferring chicks to a coop

You want to wait until they are fully feathered, about 6 to 8 weeks. Especially if they will be introduced outside with no supplemental heat. It will also depend on the outside temperature and what the chicks are used to, whether they are big enough to fend for themselves if you have to gradually introduce them to other chickens in the coop, etc.

WE HAVE 2 CHICKENS AND ONE

WE HAVE 2 CHICKENS AND ONE ROOSTER THEY ARE 4 YEARS OLD NOW. THE CHICKENS ARE NOT LAYING ANY EGGS. I WONDER IF THEY ARE SICK. ONE OF THE GIRLS HAS LOOSE WASTE ALL THE TIME, BUT OTHERWISE SEEMS FINE. IS THERE ANYTHING I COULD GIVE HER FOR THAT?

I have been letting my hens

I have been letting my hens roam the yard since purchased a week or 2 ago. Today I just noticed that one of them had laid 4 eggs. I do not know how long they have been there done my husband usually cares for them and he also didn't know we had eggs. Should I leave them there and see if they will hatch? Also I would like to know how long I have to pick them up if I want to eat them.

I have 10 chickens that will

I have 10 chickens that will start laying in about two weeks or so. Lately when I go down to feed them, a couple of them have seemed aggressive and one in particular came up and pecked me so hard on one hand and the back of one leg that it broke the skin, bled and hurt pretty badly.

What would make a chicken do that? And, what would be the most effective way to stop that kind of behavior?

Okay,I don't know if this

Okay,I don't know if this will answer your question. But my buddy has chickens and he had the same problem. This sounds kinda weird but it's really not if you do it. It's kinda interesting at times. When I go out and feed my girls,I stoop down with them and just chill with them for a minute or two. I can put my hand in front of there face and they won't do anything they will just come up to me and get petted. There way mellow. I told my buddy to try that and it seems to of worked for him. His are mellow now.

I've been doing quail for

I've been doing quail for about 6 months now and decided to start raising chickens. Just got the baby chics in Monday. I googled how to raise chickens and when I found your sight it all made a lot more since. Thanks to who ever you are this sight helped me out a lot.

Thanks for all the good

My hens are healthy,

My hens are healthy, free-range, and are put in the pen and hen house each evening. So far, I havent closed the door and let them out of the pen about noon. They will put themselves into the hen house each evening and go to roost. My problem is, Im only finding one to three eggs in the hen house. But I just got 16 out of the horse barn, in a window frame between the stalls. I found over 2 doz. in an unused dog house. How do I get them to lay consistantly in the hen house? I will be putting up a door for winter, and have heat lamps for them.

If you are talking about the

If you are talking about the white stings those are called chalazas they hold the yolk in place. Also in the yolk you may see a white spot that is the germinal disk of the egg was to be fertilized that is the part that would eventually turn into the chick

I have one Americauna hen

I have one Americauna hen who's shells are paper thin even with oyster shell supplements. Can you tell me what's the problem? If I really beef up her diet with tons of calcium foods, they do get better, but I can't keep up that diet forever...too expensive. I'd rather give her away to a farm rescue I know...Also, I have 6 chicks about 6 weeks old. RRR's. Only 1 is about half the size of the others, and her feathers are coming in much more slowly...she seems fine otherwise. Why is she so small? Please respond by email...

You'll hear mixed opinions

You'll hear mixed opinions but the breed doesn't matter a lot to the hen. Just avoid mixing extra-small and -large breeds. However, the rooster needs be dominant--so he needs to be old enough. If your hens are mature, we'd say he should be at least a year. Also, you need 1 rooster for every 10 to 12 hens.

First, understand that

First, understand that "pullets" are female chicks who do not yet lay eggs. Most breeds of hens will start laying at 20 weeks (4-6 months of age). The number of eggs depends on the hen. On average, 3 hens should give you 2 eggs a day. So, 18 hens = 84 eggs. Note that some hens will lay more often and some will lay less and you might find a hen that doesn't lay at all.